I had a very long post typed out responding to this thread but I pressed back and it got deleted. The short version: 1. The layperson explanation for how rein

I had a very long post typed out responding to this thread but I pressed back and it got deleted. The short version: 1. The layperson explanation for how reinforced concrete works is that concrete holds compression and steel holds tension. This isn't really true - steel also contributes to compression. Why not just use steel for everything? Because concrete is easier to work with and cheaper. 2. Shear failures are actually usually either crushing failures (compression) or tension failures. This is because any shear stress state can be transformed into pure tension/compression by a simple rotational transformation (because any given stress state can be represented by a tensor in a chosen basis). 3. Welded wire fabric (or mesh, depending on your supplier) is more robust than chickenwire but you'll find that most crews actually call it chickenwire. 4. Bending rebar by hand means nothing. You can bend anything by hand given a long enough length beyond an anchor point because the moment arm is a function of the distance from the point of fixity. See my other post for sizes that I would not be surprised could be bent "by hand" in the field. 5. It's unclear what's meant by "lateral forces" in the GP post. Lateral forces can be taken at the structure level or the member level. When someone talks about "lateral forces" in the structure context they're usually talking about forces that are not in the direction that gravity works. For buildings this means wind and earthquakes. Lateral forces result in bending and shear (aka tension failures), both of which require rebar to resist for significant structures. From this perspective, lateral forces are usually a primary reason to include rebar in designs.